rote to his brother
admiral, Sir George Peckham, indignantly of this desertion, the reason
for which he did not know, and then proceeded on his voyage with
his four remaining ships. This was on the 11th of January, 1583. The
expedition was so far successful that Gilbert took formal possession
of Newfoundland for the Queen. But a fatality attended his further
explorations: the gallant admiral went down at sea in a storm off our
coast, with his crew, heroic and full of Christian faith to the last,
uttering, it is reported, this courageous consolation to his comrades at
the last moment: "Be of good heart, my friends. We are as near to heaven
by sea as by land."

In September, 1583, a surviving ship brought news of the disaster to
Falmouth. Raleigh was not discouraged. Within six months of this loss he
had on foot another enterprise. His brother's patent had expired. On
the 25th of March, 1584, he obtained from Elizabeth a new charter with
larger powers, incorporating himself, Adrian Gilbert, brother of
Sir Humphrey, and John Davys, under the title of "The College of the
Fellowship for the Discovery of the Northwest Passage." But Raleigh's
object was colonization. Within a few days after his charter was issued
he despatched two captains, Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlow, who in July
of that year took possession of the island of Roanoke.

The name of Sir Walter Raleigh is intimately associated with Carolina
and Virginia, and it is the popular impression that he personally
assisted in the discovery of the one and the settlement of the other.
But there is no more foundation for the belief that he ever visited the
territory of Virginia, of which he was styled governor, than that he
accompanied Sir Humphrey Gilbert to Newfoundland. An allusion by William
Strachey, in his "Historie of Travaile into Virginia," hastily read, may
have misled some writers. He speaks of an expedition southward, "to some
parts of Chawonock and the Mangoangs, to search them there left by Sir
Walter Raleigh." But his further sketch of the various prior expeditions
shows that he meant to speak of settlers left by Sir Ralph Lane and
other agents of Raleigh in colonization. Sir Walter Raleigh never saw
any portion of the coast of the United States.

In 1592 he planned an attack upon the Spanish possessions of Panama, but
his plans were frustrated. His only personal expedition to the New World
was that to Guana in 1595.

The expedition of Captain Amadas a